Back to basics. How to make dinner rolls.

This weeks post is by Chloe.  I had it ready to post last week when Andy died.  Like meals in the freezer, posts  ready to go are also a wonderful thing.  My Dad features here and I have to mention how a certain Aunt and other friends became famous in our family for speciality items.  At eighty years old  Dad was still talking about the sweet buns his Aunt made when he was little.  There was a light fruit cake I continually made because someone else in the family made it and he considered it the best cake ever.   Andy and I still talked about how our Nanas from the exact same era (Andy and I being the same age) made biscuits we called Cockles that were small and glued together with the palest pink icing.  Both our Nans made big jars of these to send with us if we went away on holidays.   Andy's family would be going to the beach and one of the highlights for him was this jar of biscuits!   We have learned you can be legendary if you have one good recipe and made it often!   If someone is still talking about something you baked seventy five years later  (or fifty in our case)  it must have been good.  This is the power of baking!! 

 Hello lovely Ladies.

In this world of excess and distraction, of the misleading messages we receive about the women we should be… I must say that nothing seems to be appealing to me more these days than the thought of wearing aprons over my pretty dresses and being a happy, capable homemaker surrounded by my young family. 

I remember my grandfather saying back in the day things were simpler, you could go to the country fair, find the winner of the cake baking competition and marry her and you had a pretty good chance of happiness! 

Now days young men (and plenty of my husbands friends) have been swayed by the flattering angles of beachside instagram selfies and needless to say they are now stuck paying for self tanning appointments and cooking their own dinners.  

I don’t have a bikini body (I’m not sure anyone who has had 3 kids in 4 years does!) but I am pleased to say I can make a home made sourdough dinner roll that my husband is happy to brag about - I literally caught him sending photos of them to his less fortunate friends one night. 

There is something immensely satisfying about mastering a new skill and feeling capable in your own home. Likely no one will ever see it, you won’t get any likes online or external gratification but you will be the wife/mother/daughter that makes “the best…”. 

These dinner rolls are worth sharing. The recipe is from Lisa at farmhouseonboone Easy Sourdough Dinner Rolls - Farmhouse on Boone

and they are amazing and I mean leave aside your main meal to fit in an extra roll kind of amazing. They are easy to make and cost nearly nothing, they just require planning ahead so that your sourdough starter is feed and your dough has time to rise before dinner. 

I take my starter out of the fridge and feed it when I first wake up. After breakfast is done and the kids are sat down to an activity I get my ingredients into the stand mixer and mixing for a good 10 minutes. This gives me time to clean up after breakfast, grease a bowl for my dough and set up my secret weapon: a kombucha heating mat. When our fireplace is out I found it really hard to get reliable rising results till I discovered this trick. I slide the mat in between the folds of a tea towel and place my rising dough on top covered by another tea towel. 

I can just leave this to double in size during the day and come back about 2 hours before I want to put them in the oven. 

When it’s time, I’ll butter a springform pan, divide up and shape my dough and sat the pan on the warm mat to rise again.

Half an hour before dinner I’ll give them a quick egg wash and pop them in the oven. 

When they are done I rub the top with a little butter, release the spring pan surround and serve them straight to the table on the pan bottom. I’ve never had any left over but I imagine they would make for lovely lunch rolls as well. 

I’ve spoken before about the health benefits of sourdough vs store bought white bread and the savings can be huge aswell. 

Mastering some simple filling side dishes can help to fill up hungry bellies and stretch a meal to accommodate extras or just to allow for leftovers for the next day. 

If you try them I hope you enjoy them as much as we do! 

Thank you Chloe!  As the boys grow and eat more and more staples like bread/rolls/scrolls/pizza and buns will fill them up.  

I want to thank you all for messages and prayer.   Today is one week.  Your prayers mean everything to me and I can feel them. xxx